"Large" visuals

"Large" visuals

Nick Jackson  //  Father of 2 girls & husband to 1 lady.
Career: Head of ICT in a Yorkshire Secondary school and in my final year of an MSc in Multimedia in Education.
Blog interests: Pushing the boundaries of useful, engaging and entertaining technology for all levels of education.

 
Jan 9 / 1:02pm

Dec 2011 Email re changes to ICT curric

Dear all

I have just been given the DFE “Qualifications for 14-16 yr olds & Performance Tables” document this morning. This is the official word on issues discussed in our session on Monday. It will be backed up in January with a list provided of the qualifications that meet the criteria.

Basically everything that has been said is now set in stone re linear, external assessment requirements on quals (min of 20% of overall qual), any “more than one GCSE equiv” will only count as one.

Other added factors included that really have effect:

· External assessment is defined as independent assessment in which question papers, assignments and tasks are set by the Awarding Organisation, taken under specified conditions (incl details of supervision and duration) and marked by Awarding Org” – Seems to rule IMedia out at the moment and mean the expected changes to accom this for BTEC & OCR Nats
· Students will be allowed 2 non-GCSEs in their portfolio but these must not be in same subject (e.g. could have a BTEC in IT and BTEC in Science)
· Non GCSEs must:
o Beat least 120 GLH – does this affect any courses such as FS?
o Be graded i.e. must have at least P, M, D – Seems to rule IMedia out at moment
o Have a proven track record (be taken by at least 100 students in at least 5 centres in one of last 3 years) – so becareful of any new/obscure quals maybe  
 
Dec 25 / 2:23pm

Re:

.Lol! I’ve never interested in this but this site is awesome, dude! http://auxilingua.org/friends.group.php?xyshowtopic=27y7
 
Jul 4 / 3:14am

Dreamweaver Hint Sheet

Before you open Dreamweaver, create a folder for you website. All of your images, buttons and banner should be saved into this folder. DO NOT HAVE ANY OTHER FOLDERS – EVER!
To create a template:
*      Open Dreamweaver
*      Choose more from create new
*      Choose blank template
*      Choose HTML Template
*      Choose relevant template from next column (avoid ones with elastic in the name)
*      Layout CSS, choose create new file
*      Click Create
*      Save the CSS with a relevant name in your website folder
Your template will open...
Fill in grey areas (these areas will be repeated on every page of your website).  If you’re adding Navigation buttons in here you will need to come back later and add the links (once the pages have been created)
In white area select text (make sure it is the colour and font you want), then go to Insert menu, Template Objects, Editable region.
In file (on the right of the screen) choose manage sites from the drop down menu.
*      Name site
*      You do not want to use a server technology
*      Check folder for saving files is in correct place (click the yellow folder to browse)
*      How do you connect to remote server?  Choose None
*      Export the site
*      Save the site definition in your web folder
Save template with a suitable name (make sure it is saved as a DWT file, Dreamweaver will create a folder for your template).
To add an image, such as your banner go to: insert / image
To add a button do to: insert / image object / Fireworks HTML
Note: alternate text is the text that will be displayed when you hover over the image, it is useful for blind people or if your image fails to load.

To create each page from your template:
*      Choose File, New
*      Choose Page from Template
*      Choose your template
*      Click create
*      Now create your page. 
*      You will need to save the page as something sensible (remember you will have A LOT of files in your web folder!) so save it as home_page or similar. It should be saved as an HTML document.
*      Whenever you update the template all the pages based on it will update.

To make your buttons work:
*       Open your template (it will be in the template folder made by Dreamweaver and have the file type .dwt)
*       Click on your button
*       In the properties section at the bottom of the page, you will find link, next to the box click on the yellow folder and browse for your web page.
*       Remember your web pages will be saved as HTML files
*       When you have added a link to all of your buttons save your template
*       It will ask you if you want to update all of your pages – say yes
*       You will need to save your pages
*       Test the buttons on the Internet

Now all you will need to do is to add content to your pages. Make sure that you know what the client would like, and please think about layout and style – remember you are creative people!

Tips
*       Use tables to help with layout: inset / table (make sure you set the border to ‘0’ if you do not want to see it)
*       Use your Photoshop shills to make your website look amazing!
*       In Dreamweaver if the page has a * next to the name in the tab – it has had changes made but not been saved.
*      If your image or button does not show then it is probably because it was made somewhere else. The quickest option is to open the image or button in fireworks and save it (or export it) with a new name into your website folder – you will see if this was the problem if it automatically goes to a different folder when you press save as.
*      What else can you add to make your website better? Roll over images, a feedback form, more design and style?
*       Just be resigned to the fact that you may have to do things more than once...it will happen somewhere along the way. It’s just the way it is...So don’t get too frustrated!!!
Useful links

Be inspired:
http://www.csszengarden.com/  (click on the links to change the CSS (the style) – it has the same content but looks different, good for ideas)
 
Dec 24 / 1:14am

A Jackson Xmas 2010 photoshopped

Jacksonxmas_copy

Merry Xmas from us all and thinking of anyone we wont be with whether near of far
 
Nov 14 / 8:23am

OCR conversion to NC levels

Click here to download:
ICT Year 9 Level Conversions re OCR Nationals.doc (37 KB)
(download)

The attached shows a rough conversion to National Curriculum levels used in school based on old OCR Nationals Level 2 specification performance. This does not follow APP.

 
May 15 / 5:19am

An insight into my 2ndary ICT living theory

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A substantial extract from my dissertation as part of an MSc in Multimedia in Education (2010) inspired by Donna- http://tiny.cc/pz5za:
 
In trying to understand the values I hold as an ICT teacher I feel it is best that I provide the background as to the situation I am currently in and related history that has led me to feeling the desire to question these values. I have been involved in ICT education at largely secondary level in some form or another (e.g. by being a teacher, Head of ICT Department in 11-16; in 11-18; in sixth form college, co-author of ICT revision guides, examiner marking ICT papers, moderator marking ICT coursework, etc) and more recently to some degree at primary level for ten years. More recently, however, I have started to question my values both in relation to the teaching of the subject and in the education that students should be receiving in ICT. In order to explain why I have started questioning those values, the following are the most relevant influential factors in my career to date:
 
As a trainee teacher and in my first year of teaching, I was involved in teaching ICT as theory and practical elements. Elements that had clear distinct teaching styles for the most part and were in fact assessed differently at Key Stage 4 and 5 for most specifications in the form of (practical) coursework and written, (theory) examinations. Having moved a position teaching only Key Stage 5, this partitioning of the syllabus was and still a key feature of examination syllabuses. However, during this period of my career, vocational courses in ICT began to gain popularity in Key Stage 4 and 5. These courses were intended to provide the skills for ICT related careers and, by their nature be more ‘hands on’ i.e. they required students to apply software and hardware skills to solve problems or to design and create under given scenarios. There was very little encouragement to focus on teaching a large amount of ICT theory on these courses as the achievement of students largely came down to the quality of the evidence and the result of the endeavours in applying said software and hardware skills. Some theory was needed but only in support of the functionality of scenarios set or problems to be solved.
 
I taught both the vocational and more traditional courses during my employment in sixth form college largely at KS 5. Yet, during that time, I began to observe that students seem to enjoy the practical** and modular** nature of these courses. Although there were practical elements in the traditional courses, they were often one or two substantial pieces of coursework focussing on piece of software (e.g. spreadsheets) whereas the vocational courses offered the opportunity for smaller portions of coursework to be attempted, each focussing on different software and/or allowing students somewhat of a choice different areas of ICT such as multimedia or even on hardware such as a unit that assessed installation and reparation on computer networks and stand alone computers.
 
After taking a break from teaching for a couple of years and returning to secondary schools on my return, the vocational courses taught during my previous employment were no longer available. Given my responsibilities were spread to include KS 4 and 5 as they are now, I had to focus on both Key Stages. What was surprising to me was that the more traditional courses were in largely the same format at GCSE with the separation of practical and theoretical elements being assessed differently. This approach that GCSEs take is, in essence, the same now. Likewise at KS5, A Levels have seen the concept of Applied courses introduced but in ICT the model of theory and practical components of the syllabus being largely discrete, remains a feature to some extent of those courses.
 
In the last couple of years however, ICT at KS4 has seen a revolution with the unprecedented growth in popularity of one syllabus – OCR Nationals Level 2 ICT, accounting for over 30% of KS4 entries in ICT.  The revolution not only lies with its popularity though. In fact it could be said that it’s reformation in the issue of how to assess ICT in secondary school students is a major factor in its popularity. To give a brief summary of that in the context of the issue of theory and practical elements of ICT as discussed here, with OCR Nationals there is very minimal assessment of theory and one could argue the course allows for delivery with no reference to
theory at all. In other words, students could be taught ICT without any consideration of the following questions: What is the reason behind what I am doing? How does it relate to other subjects I am studying, to occupations and to the world outside of the classroom? What issues should I be thinking about and discussing in relation to the skills I am applying?
 
In my view and through observations I have made as a teacher and moderator of the course, OCR Nationals is being delivered in some cases with little or no reference to the questions detailed above. The specifications state the theory that teachers should be delivering to give students knowledge behind the skills being assessed but as nearly all assessment is done on proof of practical ICT skills, the theory can be quite easily ignored. Given this scenario, student grades would be arguably unaffected should a teacher choose not to teach the theory. Yet, knowledge and the understanding of the factors that underpin the subject, would be absent
education a student should have.
 
Further, this inclination to a skills based curriculum with little regard for the theory behind ICT can be seen occurring in KS3.  Some would argue that such a trend is inevitable. This could be down to ICT departments getting staff and/or students used to a way of working and/or because there is a perceived need to teach students the foundation skills in KS3 from which they can develop skills needed on the OCR Nationals (e.g. teaching students how to create a formulae in Excel in KS 3 that can then be developed into creating a business spreadsheet for Unit 1 Assessment Objective 5 of OCR Nationals.
 
At KS5, despite the introduction of Level 3 OCR Nationals (less popular than Level 2), such a drift towards to teaching skills without theory has arguably not really developed. This, I would maintain is down to traditional A Level ICT being the preferred choice of course for most schools at KS5 and the level of understanding students need on any KS5 course as regards how businesses operate at this level to be able to apply their skills to practical tasks. Yet, A Level ICT remains largely the same model for assessment as it was when I was a student teacher i.e. separate theory and practical elements and in all schools I have witnessed is taught as such. In fact, I have seen that in some schools the division remains so clear with traditional non-computerised
classrooms for the theory classes and computer rooms used for practical. This mirrors the approach taken in my teaching in sixth form college in the early 2000s where I delivered presentations of the syllabus on theory in a classroom projected at the front of the class and students compiled notes from which, they answered questions and wrote essays as homework and then ultimately in their attempts at the final written exam. Additionally, periods of ICT were then timetabled in dedicated ICT suites where students developed their coursework that they could provide reports on to be handed in at the end of the course.
 
Further to all these issues of ICT delivery in the 11-18 curriculum is the way I have witnessed a tendency in a lot of practical lessons to have little structure. Essentially as workshop-type environments, there is little shaping of lessons to allow for creativity, problem solving and/or higher order thinking. This has been seen as essential practice to good/outstanding lessons by OFSTED and supports strong pedagogy according to research. While stronger students are less likely to be adversely affected by such an environment, a significant number of students tend to under-achieve.
 
As a concept for assessing ICT at KS4, I confess to being predominantly a supporter of the way that OCR Nationals focuses on students practical skills and removes the need to learn theory in the manner of GCSE, theory for the most part, I would argue that is not really that important for ICT knowledge at secondary school (e.g. knowing the conditions of the Data Protection Act). Yet, having studied areas of educational theory during the MSc, attempted to apply these theories to my practice and reflected on my practice, I am led me to believe that the way ICT is taught in my school and in many others** has fundamental flaws. Essentially, the subject is a practical subject, a subject where skills need to be developed and lends itself to a constructivist approach. At the same time however, I believe that factors of marrying theory and practice, structuring lessons with starters and plenaries wherever possible rather than a workshop approach, relating the subject to real life events, empowering students to have an independent approach to study and exposing students to current technologies in multimedia and Web 2.0 are essential to educate and stimulate students in the subject.

In essence, it could be said that my views are that OCR Nationals and other areas of ICT teaching in secondary schools tends to be either diluted to largely skills based with little theoretical foundation or separates practical and theory into two distinct areas of assessment, the later model of assessment having remained largely unchanged for over ten years. Having taught using both models and reflecting on my practice, I have found myself for the majority of time, teaching ICT in one of the ways that I have criticised here with very little involvement of the essential factors I believe should be included. In other words, through self-reflection I have found myself to be a, “living contradiction”**(Whitehead). Those essential factors have become values that I have in relation to the teaching of ICT in secondary education and hence, a lack of adherence to those values in practice leads me to see myself as not upholding my values in the work that I do. So, the leading question if I am to reflect further is ‘How do I improve my practice?’, fundamentally, ‘how do I move away from the teaching models I see as flawed to the models that adhere to my values?’ It is in designing this product that I am attempting to do that. 
 
[The concept of living theory as outlined here is the inspiration of the work of Whitehead (http://www.actionresearch.net/) and Mcniff (http://www.jeanmcniff.com/)]
 
Apr 20 / 1:49am

Trying out www.amap.org.uk

I just tried out argument mapping using www.amap.org.uk and as a starter exercise with Year 9, looking at improving the depth of their explanations for reviews, aim and audience in Unit 22 of OCR Nationals. Overall,I really liked it and they did too.
 
First of all we listened to (but didnt watch as the context is audio infommericals):
 
Then I got students into teams and showed them: http://www.amap.org.uk/view/?map_id=2819
 
They then added their own arms as shown by these:
 
It really worked in getting them thinking about the components of making a point and supporting that point with detail, of arguing and critiquing.
 
The mechanics of the tool seem to mean that contributors who reply to your argument have to provide two arguments; each reply creates a unique web address so in effect the map as a whole with whole contributions cannot be seen on one page (maybe thats something you pay for) but very similar unique web addresses for each argument enable quick access to all arguments. As the person who set up the argument then I got emails of notification re the replies.
 
Very worthwhile and I would use again. I think many other subjects will also find this useful.
 
 
 
Feb 4 / 4:30pm

The Story of the Year 10 project

Following on from my earlier blog posts (see Stand Back and Admire, Etherpad roll out with Y10s and Ning roll out with Y10s), I would like to share the ins and outs of the project that I have set up and Year 10s (14 year olds) are well under way with.

The work students have to complete is to design, create and test an animation for a unit of an ICT Key Stage 4 course. I teach 3 classes of varying ability and there are 5 other classes in the year working on the same unit taught by other teachers.

Prior to the commencement of the unit, while they were doing other work, I introduced a Ning social networking site purely to enable social communication between students. This proved highly popular and was quickly embraced by nearly all students. The very low ability contributed on a small scale but seem to enjoy lurking at the very least.

On introducing the new unit, I changed my approach from previous units taught: 
  • There was no talk of the pass requirements
  • Students were given very little information on how they were going to do things
  • Collaboration was going to be the key theme: No one gets left behind
  • My introduction set the scene as much as possible in them being part of commercial teams, in an employment context, with discussion how that would work in the real world, the responsibilities it would bring
  • Students were provided with one sheet of A4 of information in addition to my verbal introduction to the work (see Team Remit)
After the introduction, students were put into teams of 4 or 5 although the work required has ultimately to be individual. The teams were selected by me and support workers taking account abilities of students, personalities, friendship groups and special needs where applicable. There was an attempt to have each team consist of higher and lower abilities as well as stronger/weaker characters i.e. teams would be more likely to have natural leaders who could assist those struggling when necessary. Students were also told that communication on the work they were to do had to be by electronic means only and the Ning discussion forum was the a good tool for that.

The first task for students to complete was to set up a discussion with their team members i.e. one discussion per team and decide via posting on there how they were going to approach the topic of e-safety and what contributions they intended to make to their team. Activity on the forums was very very high (approaching 300 posts in one lesson) and students were clearly engaged in the communication although some found the thread nature of a forum a little confusing while others wanted faster dialogue.

Students were then allowed time to research the topic, find characters/images that may want to use individually or as a team and share all this on the discussion forums also. I showed commercial examples of Flash animations as well as previous students work, TV adverts via Youtube that used animation and talked briefly about how Joel Veitch at www.rathergood.com went from being bizarre cartoon ideas to commercial success with Crusha and credit card adverts. 

By now it was clear all students had a grasp of what animation they were going to create and some idea of how it would look. As the discussion forum communication waned when students began to tidy up images, preparing them for use in their animations, I posted what instructions and ideas to enable completion of the design work students needed to complete. That was the only place they could get the information from and all students accessed the materials and completed the work.

Then it was time to try and teach students Adobe Flash. Not the easiest job in my experience. Yet, I bravely decided to stick to my principals in teaching ICT: I am better spending my time assisting while the students find out for themselves, with peer assistance and through the whole host of learning resources that are often freely available via the internet. To assist in this task I launched Etherpad with these students. My intention was to have one Etherpad per class and although working in teams, students to collaborate with the whole class on how to use Flash. Yet, as previously blogged, students remodelled this to their own ends and created their own Etherpads for their teams. I insisted on links being provided for these Etherpads and provided a few resources for beginners to Flash. The students then used these and added to them, shared ideas on how to do certain things in Flash and provided resources they had found.

From my observations, Flash needs more than just tutorials and resources for a number of students. Yet, I have ensured that team members have assisted each other just as much if not more than I have done in the creation of animations and how to use Flash. I have held team meetings to monitor progress and made team members aware of each others progress, reminding them of the No one gets left behind ethos. 

A few weeks into the use of Etherpad, there are students who love the speed of the tool in terms of communication and this provides their backchannel in the lesson. Others, who don't seem interested in this form of dialogue in lesson, still socialise via the Ning leaving comments on walls, posting pictures but everyone is progressing really well and the engagement remains in completing the 'jobs' they have to do. Their need to use any of these communication tools for their work on the unit is over for the minute although I have recently provided technical evidence instructions using the discussion forum again.

Students will soon begin the testing phase. Let's see what I come up with for that?!?!?

I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this.

 

(download)

Click here to download:
Unit 20 Team Remit.docx (20 KB)
(download)

Filed under  //  Education   Technology   Web 2.0   elearning   ict  
 
Jan 21 / 1:07pm

A week on from the Revolution

Some might say that I have missed the boat, much too late to be harking back to BETT 2010 and discussing the phenomenon that was TMTakeover. I disagree. I have digested, read blog posts, tweets, comments on posts, replies to tweets and replies to replies yet there is an angle to all this I have waited to share. My views are clear, TMTakeover was a revolution, a rebellion fed by the power of PLNs and a shared drive by those in and around education to share their experiences. An awesome display from, in my opinion. a fast growing under current in education.

But these things have already been said haven't they? "I love Teachmeet. I love being involved in the most exciting network of professionals I have ever met" - eylanezekiel, "I thoroughly enjoyed BETT2010 and think the TeachMeet Takeover is a resoundingly good idea." - leoncych (all quotes from http://edte.ch/blog/tag/tmtakeover/) Then there has been commentary about the future of the concept, it's development, improvement etc (see http://edte.ch/blog/tag/tmtakeover/ and http://ow.ly/XrFk as examples).

I felt the most important element for me was not only to use some of the ideas/tools I had picked up from TMTakeover but to share with my students in Y10 some of my experiences but more importantly see there reactions when I explained what I had done at BETT 2010. I showed them a Chris Ratcliffe video from http://education.scholastic.co.uk/content/9967?clearcache and a Flickr pic from  by Danny Nicholson. To say they were thrilled, proud almost of seeing some of their at times, bizarre content is an understatement. I think it began to dawn on them the power of the tools they had been using, To my mind the Ning seemed "just another school thing" before then. This has seemed to enthuse them and engage them. 

So, for me, the positives from TMTakeover and my involvement in it have now evolved again and my eyes are opened for any opportunity I can get to promote successes such as these to as big an audience as possible. Further, it has convinced me that giving students a presence outside your classroom, a potential worldwide audience by the way you do things in the classroom and the tools you use is an enormous motivator.

Filed under  //  TMTakeover   TeachMeet   bett2010  
 
Jan 19 / 7:38am

To VLE or not to VLE.

BETT this year was not heavy on the learning platform/VLE providers/agenda and it does rather seem quiet on that front at the moment in most secondary schools I know of. After OFTSED recently slaughtered school use of learning platforms despite their research relying on only 12 schools, there seems little comeback. So, has it all been a vast waste of time and money for LEAs, schools, teachers and everyone else? The idea is brilliant, the benefits amazing for everyone in theory. But what is the reality? I know of some schools where the whole idea has ground to a halt and likewise some where it hasn't really even begun. More commonly, I find schools have inconsistent success in their use of VLEs with some departments using the VLE their school or LEA has chosen and even relying on them to some extent yet other departments in the same school not even touching the same tools, with the rest of the school somewhere in-between.

I attended a BECTA Keynote speech at BETT 2010 where they presented the national research they are about to publish which highlights a different picture, a far more positive slant on the degree of success of Learning Platforms in schools. Yet, in the short time I got to digest what was being said in the presentation, the criteria for judging this success were very 'achievable'. Where should schools be at with VLE/Learning Platforms given the time and money issues?

Then there are many of us already pushing the boundaries beyond the need for a VLE when many tools can be combined into a PLE or PLN and arguably this more accurately reflects the real world of both students and teachers. I pointed this out to the BECTA presenter after his speech and he could only say such pioneers were few and far between. Yet, how true is this and how long can it remian like that?

So, what does a school or LEA do about the impending issues re VLEs, Parental access to data, etc etc and the government requirements in all this combined with the needs of it's staff and students? If money has or hasn't already been spent then is it realistic to expect most schools to move away from the expensive learning platforms being offered to 'new' technologies such as Google Docs and the cloud concept. And will doing this mean that certain criteria such as parental reporting wcan be fulfilled? If not then surely the shelf life for VLEs is very short given the growing Web 2.0/Cloud movement amongst educators?

Any thoughts are welcome.
Filed under  //  Web 2.0   becta   bett2010   elearning   learning platforms   ple   pln   vle